With
the high demand and strong momentum from the United States Garbage Pail
Kids All-New Series 1, Topps eagerly made the decision to produce another
Garbage Pail Kids series. This new release came only a few months
after the fourth and final printing of the All-New Series 1. Being
that it was such a short time span since the previous series, it made
it seem like Topps was attempting to recapture the rapid pace of series
releases per year just like they had done with the original Garbage Pail
Kids series. Additional artists were needed in order to complete
all of the artwork on time. The United States Garbage Pail Kids
All-New Series 2 provided collectors with new types of cards to collect.
The dedicated collectors even had the special bonus cards to hunt down,
which could only be found in the bonus boxes sold at certain chain stores.
This time around, dealers would purchase several cases of the product
to make sure they could keep up with the demand. The resurrected
Garbage Pail Kids have made their presence known across the globe.
It is now in Topps' hands to see how long they can keep the interest of
the veteran Garbage Pail Kids collectors and find a way to expand the
fan base to the younger generation.

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There
were three different items found in the United States Garbage Pail Kids
All-New Series 2 packs. Topps titled the items for the series differently
than what I will refer to them as. The Stickers will be referred
to as Cards, the Foil Stickers will be referred to as Foil Cards, the
Scratch 'N Stink will be referred to as Scratch 'N Stink Cards, and the
Bonus Stickers will be referred to as Bonus Cards. I used these
titles to help clarify which items I am discussing. The cards, foil
cards, and bonus cards are actually stickers on card backing, so I decided
to continue on with the same format I had been using on the website and
refer to them as cards.

I provided samples of what the cards and
items of the series look like. The first and last cards, foil cards,
and scratch 'n stink cards are shown above. There also are image
overviews of all of the cards, foil cards, and scratch 'n stink cards.
The card checklist, foil card/scratch 'n stink card checklist, the front
and back of both bonus cards, sample foil card back, and sample scratch
'n stink card back can also be seen above. The purpose of the samples
and image overviews is to give you a preview of the series. Higher
quality images of these items will not be provided on this website or
by request.

There are a total of 94 different characters
(48 different paintings) in the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New
Series 2. Tom
Bunk created 16 new paintings for the series, and John
Pound created 15 new paintings for the series. There were some
additional artists painting characters for the series. Jeff Zapata,
the series editor, created 1 new painting for the series. John Czop
created 1 new painting for the series, Chris Hebal created 1 new painting
for the series, Pat and Sean Glover created 6 new paintings for the series,
Strephon Taylor
created 4 new paintings for the series, and James
Warhola created 4 new paintings for the series.

One of the main things most collectors had
noticed was how different the artwork styles were for the cards, scratch
'n stink cards, and bonus cards. The artists were not told how to
paint the characters, and there really was not a set standard for how
to paint the characters (style, color, look, etc.). So, most of
the artists new to painting Garbage Pail Kids went in their own direction.
This created quite an uproar after the series was released because many
of the loyal fans were expecting to see the same artwork style that the
original series characters had. The most important thing about Garbage
Pail Kids is the artwork. It is what drew most of the fans to collecting
the cards in the first place. With the exception of the changes
to the characters because of the lawsuit (see the Models
section for more information on the lawsuit), the artwork really needs
to be consistent with the style created by John Pound back in the original
series. All of the artists need to capture that style for every
Garbage Pail Kids character they paint in order to please the fans out
there. Otherwise, there will be complaints about the artwork, fans
will loose interest in collecting the cards, Garbage Pail Kids sales will
drop, and there will not be any new Garbage Pail Kids series created.

Another interesting thing that some of the
collectors had noticed was that almost all of the characters appeared
to be white. All of the previous Garbage Pail Kids series were more
racially diverse. This was definitely not done on purpose. It probably
occurred because there were so many different artists painting the characters,
and no one specifically told them to create characters from other races.
Just as there were Cabbage Patch Kids dolls from different races, it is
a good idea to create a racially diverse group of Garbage Pail Kids characters
in order to appeal to children from all backgrounds.

There were first names used for new characters
in the All-New Series 1 that were also used in the All-New Series 2.
Out of the 80 different new character names for the All-New Series 1 and
94 different new character names for the All-New Series 2, there were
16 repeated first names: Abby (All-New Series 1: 2b Abby Birthday and
All-New Series 2: 27a Scabby Abby), Cody (All-New Series 1: 4a Cootie
Cody and All-New Series 2: 14b Corny Cody), David (All-New Series 1: 28a
Duped David and All-New Series 2: 39a Deflated David), Ethan (All-New
Series 1: 38a Lethal Ethan and All-New Series 2: 3a Eaten Ethan), Greg
(All-New Series 1: 22a Gross Greg and All-New Series 2: 1a Peg Leg Greg),
Justin (All-New Series 1: 3a Bustin' Justin and All-New Series 2: 1b Justin
Timber Leg), Mark (All-New Series 1: 25b Marked Mark and All-New Series
2: 15a Skid Mark), Max (All-New Series 1: 40b Magic Max and All-New Series
2: 9b Max Wax), Paul (All-New Series 1: 27b Punchy Paul and All-New Series
2: B2 Paintball Paul), Pete (All-New Series 1: 34b Pierced Pete and All-New
Series 2: 36a Pete Achoo), Phil (All-New Series 1: 33a Phat Phil and All-New
Series 2: S1b Ol' Faith Phil), Stephanie (All-New Series 1: 10b Stuffin'
Stephanie and All-New Series 2: S3b Stinkin' Stephanie), Tori (All-New
Series 1: 23b Yuckie Tori and All-New Series 2: 38a Torn Tori), Tyler
(All-New Series 1: 12b Bathroom Tyler and All-New Series 2: 20b Tinklin'
Tyler), Wesley (All-New Series 1: 3b Wesley Wormhole and All-New Series
2: 19b Webby Wesley), and Will (All-New Series 1: 33b Ill Will and All-New
Series 2: 11b Will Wobble). The character name for the All-New Series
2 card 13a Scuzzy Ozzy was not the best choice because there are very
few people in the world with the first name Ozzy besides Ozzy Osbourne,
but Topps felt that since the look of the character was based on Ozzy
Osbourne that they would at least use his first name for one of the cards
with that character. One of the things that children like about
the Garbage Pail Kids cards is that there are characters that share the
same first name as them. There are plenty of common first names
that have never been used in any of the Garbage Pail Kids series, so there
really is no reason to repeat so many of the same first names for any
of the new Garbage Pail Kids characters. Topps choose most of the
first names from a list of popular children's names, which was from around
1994. Their thinking was that the children would now be around 10
years old and would be right around the targeted age to start collecting
Garbage Pail Kids cards.

There were four printings of the United
States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series 2. All of the printings
were exactly the same except the yellow on the box was changed to green
for the third and fourth printings. You would be able to complete
sets of the various items using boxes from any print runs. There
were no variation for any of the printings. The bonus cards did
not come in the regular boxes, and you would have to purchase the bonus
boxes in order to obtain them. I discuss more details about the
packs and bonus cards/boxes under the Packaging and Contents section.

The card thickness and finish remained consistent
throughout the four printings. There were two different checklists
for the series. There was a card checklist and a foil card/scratch
'n stink card checklist. The card checklist and foil card/scratch
'n stink card checklist were both used for 4 of the card backs.
The card checklist numbering is right-justified and has upper-case A's
and B's. The foil card/scratch 'n stink card checklist numbering
is also right-justified and has upper-case A's and B's. The cards
are numbered 1A to 40A and 1B to 40B, which can be very confusing to new
collectors because the numbers are the same as the original Series 1 and
All-New Series 1. Card numbers 1a/b to 32a/b are all vertically
displayed, and card numbers 33a/b to 40a/b are all horizontally displayed.
The die-cuts on the cards were all the same shape. The cards were
not printed with asterisks on them like the original Garbage Pail Kids
series. The cards have an extremely glossy coating on them, which
is supposed to help protect them from getting damaged. However,
the glossy coating is so thick that the cards often stick together, and
over time it may cause permanent damage to the cards especially if the
cards are tightly pressed together. The coloring of the cards is
much brighter and more vibrant compared to the All-New Series 1.
If you look closely at the Garbage Pail Kids banners and name ovals on
the fronts of the cards, you will notice that the lines appear much more
jagged compared to the original series Garbage Pail Kids banners and name
ovals.

The same gold colored foil was used on the
foil cards for all of the print runs. The gold foil on the foil
cards is somewhat dark and does not contrast with the characters enough
in order to show them off well. The foil cards are numbered F1A
to F25A and F1B to F25B (note the usage of "F" for the numbering),
which does help distinguish them from the foil cards in the All-New Series
1. All of the foil cards except number 24a/b are vertically displayed.
The foil cards were printed on thin card stock, which is unfortunately
more prone to getting damaged. The backs of the foil cards are matte
finish. A card with a matte finish is dull, flat-looking, and has
a rough surface.

Pat and Sean Glover did all 25 paintings
(50 different characters) for the foil cards. The old characters
were used so that people unfamiliar with Garbage Pail Kids could get acquainted
with them. The style of the artwork for the foil cards was very
different than what was on the original cards. Even though there
were improvements made with the All-New Series 2 foil card artwork compared
to the All-New Series 1 foil card artwork, many collectors still did not
like it because the style was drastically different than the original
paintings.

A unique 7-digit online code was printed
on the backs of the foil cards. The online code would unlock special
features for the Build-A-Kid contest on Topps' Garbage
Pail Kids World website (it is no longer up). On rare occasion, you could find foil
cards with upside-down bonus codes or foil cards that were not printed
with a bonus code. The Build-A-Kid contest allowed users to create
their own Garbage Pail Kids character via the Internet using pre-defined
attributes (different hands, faces, heads, clothes, objects, etc.), and
then the public would then vote on their favorite character. The
character that had the most votes would win, and the winner would get
their character painted by an Garbage Pail Kids artist and used in an
upcoming Garbage Pail Kids series.

For foil card F2a, the name Wacky Jacky
was used by mistake. In the original United States Garbage Pail
Kids 1st Series, the name was spelled as Wacky Jackie (with "ie"
at the end of the name instead of "y"), which is how the character's
name should have been spelled in the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New
Series 2.

The scratch 'n stink cards are numbered
S1A to S6A and S1B to S6B (note the usage of "S" for the numbering).
All of the scratch 'n stink cards except number 4a/b are vertically displayed.
The scratch 'n stink cards were not coated with gloss like the regular
cards. They felt much like the original Garbage Pail Kids cards.
Each scratch 'n stink card had a scented, circular area, which you were
to scratch in order to reveal its foul odor. On the back of the
scratch 'n stink cards was a guide to show you where the scent was located,
but you could usually see where the scent circle was located by tilting
the card. Some scents were extremely pungent, and it was unnecessary
to scratch the card to smell them. Sometimes, you could find scratch
'n stink cards without the scented area, and there were collectors who
tried to put together sets with cards that had the scented areas and sets
that did not have the scented areas. Because some of the scents were so
horrible, many collectors kept their scratch 'n stink cards separate from
their regular cards.

There were two bonus cards, and they were
numbered B1 and B2. There were no "a" or "b"
versions of the bonus cards. Besides the numbering and bonus card
information on the backs, the bonus cards looked and felt the same as
the regular cards. The bonus cards had die-cuts and an extremely
glossy coating just like the regular cards. However, the bonus cards
are more valuable than the regular cards because they were much more difficult
to obtain and only available in the bonus boxes.

There was a very unusual mistake made on
how Topps placed the Garbage Pail Kids banner on bonus card B2.
You can see that the banner goes in front of everything except the head
of the character and chipped out portion of the wall. This gives
the appearance that the character and chipped out wall portion is floating
far in front of everything else instead of attached to the wall.
Even if the banner was behind the lights, paintings, and character; everything
would appear to be floating. They could have shrunk down the character
so that the banner could go on top of everything, they could have painted
"Garbage Pail Kids" into the painting (possibly using paintball
shots) and omitted the banner, or they could have just omitted the banner
altogether.

Puzzle
Backs

Horizontal
Puzzles (Purple and Yellow)

Vertical
Puzzles(Blue, Green, Orange, and Red)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

There
were 6 different puzzles for the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New
Series 2. The high number of puzzles was due to the lack of additional
content for the backs of the cards. Content similar to what was
used for the original United States Garbage Pail Kids series card backs
(e.g. awards, licenses, "wanted for", activities, horoscopes,
etc.) was excluded from the United States Garbage Pail Kids All-New Series
2, which did disappoint many collectors.

Instead of alphabetically numbering the
puzzles (e.g. Puzzle A, Puzzle B, Puzzle C, etc.), colors were used.
The puzzles were of characters from the series, but they did not have
the name ovals printed on them. The blue border puzzle was of S1a
Stony Tony/S1b Ol' Faith Phil, the green border puzzle was of 5a Lost
In Austin/5b Fat Chance, the orange border puzzle was of 1a Peg Leg Greg/1b
Justin Timber Leg, the purple border puzzle was of 33a Car Sick Caroline/33b
Icky Vicky, the red border puzzle was of 2a Aerial Ariel/2b Bubbly Brianna,
and the yellow border puzzle was of 39a Deflated David/39b Squirtin' Stephen.
Each puzzle, as shown above, was comprised of 9 puzzle pieces (3 pieces
across and 3 pieces down). The purple and yellow border puzzles
were turned on the horizontal, and the blue, green, orange, and red border
puzzles were turned on the vertical.

Each completed puzzle picture (one for each
color) was used for 3 of the card backs. The completed puzzle pictures
are shown above. I also created two diagrams (one for the puzzles
turned on the horizontal and one for the puzzles turned on the vertical)
showing where each of the 9 puzzle pieces should go, and I made a list
that shows the card numbers that go with each of the puzzles.